Have you ever had an experience where you just knew something was going to happen? I don’t mean big, world-changing things (though that’s also relevant to this discussion), but what about little, everyday events. Like, maybe you knew that waiter at the café was going to drop a glass. Or that the wind was going to blow that coffee cup off the trunk of a nearby car. Or that something was wrong with your sister who lives far away—an illness, an accident, something… You may have just had a premonition.

Premonitions are relevant to the paranormal discussion because the concept taps into our ability to see and sense things that aren’t there (yet). If we can glimpse or sense a little bit into the future, it begs the question if we can also glimpse a little bit into the past. And if we can glimpse a little, can we glimpse a lot?

If you want to forget the paranormal for a minute, it’s easy to understand how a glimpse into the very near future serves us. Call it animal instinct if you will, but if we can sense danger moments before it happens, we’re better equipped to face the danger. Or at the very least our bodies are ready for fight or flight responses. It gives us an edge. A chance for survival. Seeing moments into the future helps. Granted, our lives aren’t threatened by a waiter dropping a glass in a café, but perhaps we can think of that example as the same “muscle group” for more serious premonitions.

Seeing too far into the future (and by that I mean more than a few seconds) could be a serious detriment, so it’s a good thing we don’t have that ability. There are two reasons for this: First, the future is unwritten. So if I tell you to not wear a metal suit of armor tomorrow outside during an electrical storm, it’s possible there will be no storm. It’s also possible that there will be a storm, but you won’t be struck by lightning. And of course, it’s possible there will be a storm, and you will get struck by lightning, and be a front-runner for this year’s Darwin Awards for dying in a stupid way. That’s reason Number 1. But the second reason is far more practical. If you knew for certain that in 24 hours from now you will face some serious, yet unknown danger where your very life is at stake, you won’t have the ability to think clearly between now and then. Your body can’t spend a day in fight or flight mode, and the anxiety would cause you far more harm than whatever benefit a non-specific warning could provide.

The next question premonitions beg is this: if we can see ahead, can we see behind? Can we see far behind? Unlike learning the future, there’s no harm in learning the past (the historian in me will tell you it’s important to learn the past because history has a way of repeating). If our consciousness can bend time and space for our benefit, then why not allow us to see into the past? What if the ability we call “psychic” is really an ability to project ourselves into a different spacetime momentarily? And so a premonition is just a small sample of a much larger ability that remains untapped in most of us.

This month we’re going to explore premonitions, and what the bigger implications for us may be.